The old winter leagues were often 144 or 155 pegs with teams of 12. Nationals and Regionals were also teams of 12 and if I remember rightly the Drennan Superleague may have been teams of 8. Opens in the North East where I lived at the time were often 100 pegs plus with the river champs for rivers like the Yorkshire Ouse, Swale and Tees attracting much higher turn outs. The Nationals were huge events with sections being like an open match.
People may look at those matches with tinted specs. They soon forget it wasn't uncommon for half the field to blank in some winter leagues with section money drawn out of a hat. The last Div 1 national I fished for Shakespeare I only weighed around 3lbs in a tough area on the Trent. I also remember my team winning a National on the Trent, (Greys Imex), weighing in less than 2lbs on a flooded river, (people also forget about those).
Going back to opens and winter leagues, I remember getting a big plug in AT with the header Brittain Bags Up under Bush when I won a 156 peg North east Winter League match on the River Tees at Yarm. I had 8lbs 8oz of small dace and chublets, most caught down the middle and a few down the side just out from a bush, (everybody had bushes), however the back up weights were 8lbs 7 oz, 8lbs 6oz, 8;bs 4oz, 8lbs 3 oz which on paper looks like a close match but fails to mention the 100 odd anglers who struggled for bites on what looked to be a good river in decent conditions.
I dare say I've won more big matches with less than 10lbs than with more than 10lbs however that only paints part of the picture because on a lot of matches you'd frame with 3-6lbs. If you take into account very well attended matches won on the Stainforth Canal with 6lbs, Yorkshire Ouse with 5lbs, Tees with 8lbs and then add the blanks in winter matches fishing wasn't the picture some paint it to be.
Today we are spoiled. In winter on commercials you rarely blank. If you're not on carp you can target silvers and you can catch 10-20lbs and come nowhere. If you're on carp you can have a very easy days fishing on less than a tin of corn.
The comments about waste of time and you can't compete from there are part and parcel of it. When I qualified for Fisho in 2006 and I went to draw 2nd from last there were only 2 pegs left 10 and 11, the two pegs nobody wanted to draw. They were that bad nobody even practiced on them. I spent the night commiserating with my old mate Matt Hall.
Going back to modern day commercials, carp and silvers I've seen some posts inferring you need specialist kit, however that's a total fallacy, look at most match anglers kit and you'll soon see they have standard match poles, standard pellet waggler rods and standard feeder rods with a parabolic action. Des Shipp even managed to win the Park Dean £25K using a £50 Preston Tyson and I've lost count of the matches I won with a £60, 11ft Shakespeare Mach 3 Micro Pellet Waggler rod on big weight venues Stafford Moore and Viaduct.
To be honest we've never had it so good, big carp, little carp, F1's and silvers which have thrived on carp venues due to mopping up the fishmeal baits thrown in. Good value rods and reels not to mention margin poles and 300 yds of line for £6, what's not to like? On many venues you don't even need to fish long because on many big weight venues you can catch at 4m or down the side. With a balanced set up it's relatively easy to subdue big fish, you just have to apply a little patience and common sense.
I can't see why people are complaining we've never had it so good not to mention there are also plenty of rivers and canals if you want to purely fish for silvers.
some very nice houses up that way though 
wonder what John Ellis would make of that 
